Posts by Steve Todd
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Legal Beagle: Voting in an STV election, in reply to Paul Campbell,
Paul, I'm responding to your post where you say you're an STV fan.
See my four responses here: https://dunedinstadium.wordpress.com/2010/10/09/local-govt-online-for-results/#comments starting with the one at 10.37 a.m. on October 21 [2010].
Both Bev Butler and yourself have nothing to worry about. Very briefly, a 43-vote difference between candidates, in an NZ STV (Meek's method) election, where 32,820 votes were cast, is huge. That is not in any way close, as it might be in an FPP election.
I have seen how electionz.com process the votes, and it is practically error-proof. When the votes are scanned onto the screens, the DEOs go down the list and type in the number beside each hand-written preference. If there's any doubt (say, whether a number is a 1 or a 7, or a 5 or a 6, etc.), the electoral officer, or perhaps someone acting in that capacity (probably Warwick Lampp or Steve Kilpatrick) is called over and a decision is made.
It is not possible for so many mistakes to have been made, e.g., Fliss Butcher receiving preferences that Bev Butler should have got, that Butler was unsuccessful because of them.
I tried to get DIA officials to recommend that the Regulations be amended so that full preference data could be made publicly available, so people could run the data using their own STV programs, to confirm the results (also necessitating the public availability of the source code), but they weren't interested.
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Legal Beagle: Voting in an STV election, in reply to Moz,
My understanding is that with single-member electorates it is not proportional at all, and with multi-member it is somewhat locally proportional.
Moz, we call all STV elections in NZ, whether single- or multi-seat, Single Transferable Voting, rather than M-PV and STV, respectively. That is because, back in 2000, DIA officials thought the distinction would confuse the public. I say no more, other than to say, I was angry.
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Legal Beagle: Voting in an STV election, in reply to Tim McKenzie,
Tim—
We don’t want single-seat STV (M-PV; AV; IRV; etc.) to satisfy the Condorcet criterion, because, “The Condorcet criterion is … incompatible with the later-no-harm criterion”. (I've just noticed you've seen that (on page 2), but here goes, anyway.)
The feature of STV, that later preferences cannot harm earlier preferences, is what gives the voters the confidence to rank-order the candidates in their true and genuine order of preference. By doing so, they can be satisfied that the outcome represents their true, collective, wish – the correct candidate has been elected.
If voters were to be told, before they vote, that the votes will be counted in such a way that it is quite possible that their second preference for B might well help to defeat their first preference for A, they will likely not express second and later preferences, and we’ll be more or less back to the unlamented FPP again. They would certainly have no confidence in such a system, that’s for sure.
In almost all public elections by majority-preferential voting, the winner *is* the Condorcet winner. Does anyone doubt that Kerry Prendergast was the Condorcet winner in 2004 and 2007? Of course not.
What about The Great Cliff-Hanger Election of 2010? Celia won the head-to-head over Kerry, so we know that Kerry wasn’t the Condorcet winner. Does anyone seriously think Jack Yan, who received 5,817 first-preferences out 53,369 votes cast, might actually have beaten Celia in a head-to-count? Of course not.
What about 2013? We know John Morrison was not the Condorcet winner, because Celia beat him in a head-to-head count, too. Again, what about Jack Yan? This time, he received 8,105 first-preferences out of 56,254 votes cast. Would he really have beaten Celia in a head-to-head count? Again, of course not.
In the run-up to the first Flag referendum, Eric Crampton, Head of Research at The New Zealand Initiative, was hoping the result would be close. He wanted to get his hands on the preference data in the hope of showing that the Condorcet winner did not win. (I had him on about that at the time, in a lead letter to the Editor of the Dominion Post.)
Once the results were in, he flagged that idea. Black Lockwood beat Red Lockwood head-to-head and was the clear Condorcet winner. Does anyone seriously think Red Peak, which received 122,152 first-preferences out of 1,393,615 valid votes cast, would have beaten Black Lockwood in a head-to-head count? Of course not.
Giving up later-no-harm is too high a price to pay to ensure that, in those very few public elections where the Condorcet winner would not otherwise be elected, the Condorcet winners gets to be elected anyway.
As far as I’m aware, the methods that comply with the Condorcet criterion, listed at the link you gave, are not used in public elections anywhere in the world. No doubt that is because they all violate later-no-harm.
So, Rich’s contention was very far from being dubious, as you put it. Quite the opposite, in fact.
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Some more reading material here: https://dunedinstadium.wordpress.com/2010/08/26/in-defence-of-stv-2/ just after the post, and before the 34 responses.
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Hard News: Obama's Mana, in reply to nzlemming,
Cool.
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Hard News: Obama's Mana, in reply to nzlemming,
Oh, I know it’s a fact, nzlemming, and I certainly believe it.
You seem to be arguing that because Florida was an FPP contest, third-party voters should either have stayed at home, or held their noses and voted for either Bush or Gore. Since when have third-party voters in FPP elections ever done that? Even had they done so, the outcome could still have been extremely close.
I’m just pointing out that the Florida 2000 result was not the fault of the Green Party / Nader, nor that of any particular group of voters in that state, all of whom were exercising their democratic right to participate. It was down to the electoral system and the way the votes, collectively, were cast on that particular occasion. (Saying the overall electoral system was FPP was just a quick way of describing it.)
Bush only won by 537 votes. Sure, 97,488 people voted for Nader, but 17,484 people also voted for Pat Buchanan, any, say, 1,540 of whom could have voted Republican, instead. Had they done so, what subsequently unfolded would never have happened.
And, just to show that the outcome wasn’t the fault of Nader voters, if the 622 people who voted for the Socialist candidate, or if the 562 people who voted for the Socialist Workers candidate, had voted for Gore, instead, history would have been very different, too.
Anyway, my argument is not, of course, with you, it was with Craig. I was actually agreeing with you.
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Polity: Australian election: Dust and Diesel, in reply to linger,
"And so what if it does? It might let more progressive elements into our Parliament too. (Mana, for example.) It certainly will lead to a greater diversity of views being represented. Additionally, if there’s more chance of some tangible result from voting for minor parties that actually represent voters’ views, more voters will be engaged."
Well said, linger. It seems to me Craig Young's concept of democracy is not as developed as it should be. Very disappointing.
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Hard News: Obama's Mana, in reply to nzlemming,
It would seem Craig Young can only tolerate democracy as long as it gives *him* what he wants, and *doesn't* give him what he doesn't want.
Regardless of the electoral system being used, any party or candidate who wants to make it onto the ballot, is entitled to do so.
Rather than blame the Green Party / Ralph Nader for the 2000 outcome, he should be blaming the antiquated18th Century, broken, FPP electoral system that the US persists in using.
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Hard News: Obama's Mana, in reply to Craig Young,
Craig. US presidential elections are littered with third- (or fourth-) party candidates. It's a democracy (of sorts) after all.
It's not Ralph Nader's fault that he did quite well in the crucial battleground state of Florida in 2000. That's just the way the cookie crumbled, on that particular occasion. You are being most unfair, and indeed, unreasonable. Shame on you.
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Hard News: Obama's Mana, in reply to John Morrison,
Yes.
What I like about President Obama is that he is a loving and faithful husband to Michelle, and a loving father to his daughters.